Mondoweiss: Could the Illinois campaign to overturn the state’s anti-BDS law become a national model?

JVP members are organizing alongside officials and community members to push to repeal Illinois’ anti-BDS law, the first of this type of law in the nation. Anti-BDS legislation has since spread to more than 30 states, repressing rights to free speech and protest in an attempt to shut down solidarity with Palestinians.

Mondoweiss spoke to JVP-Chicago’s Rebekah Levin on how “if the anti-BDS law is repealed, it could serve as a model for other activists hoping to overturn such legislation in their states.”

“People in other states have reached out to us,” she said. “They want to know what we did and how we did it. “If we overturn this it would be a boost to other states. It’s a powerful message. This is why pro-Israel groups are afraid of this passing. It’s about more than just Illinois.”

Jacob Berman, of JVP-Cornell, was also quoted:

A lot of congregations are “still ignoring the fact that there are a lot of young Jews who are going to leave Judaism if they are not allowed space in,” he said. In his view, American synagogues will have to “accept the fact that anti-Zionist Jews are a contingent of the broader national Jewish community.”

Read the full story in Mondoweiss.